The representation and function of Christmas in English literature of the 19th and 20th centuries

This study will present an exploration of the motif of Christmas in English literature. Christmas is the most popular annual holiday in the Western world; numerous collections of Christmas poems, short stories or carols are published every year around the season; quite a number of scholarly books and articles and many more web pages by mostly amateur 'Christmas experts' have recently been devoted to its origins, history and customs as well as to its social and psychological aspects. (...) If an analysis does pay attention to the representation of Christmas, it is often sweepingly. A broader exploration of the depiction of Christmas by different authors in various literary genres over a longer span of time has so far not been attempted at all. To do this is the objective of this thesis, which starts out by approaching the multi-faceted nature of Christmas in general